Hot Blooded

been.
    Pressing his fist to his breastbone, he released a breath. "Yes," he said as
steadily as he could. "Emile and I have some resistance, but young as you are,
you could burn completely within ten minutes. Immolation is painful, to say the
least, but if you were determined, you could succeed."
    She said nothing, as if the answer sobered the last of her rage. After a
pause, he heard her pulling on her pants. The sound of her zipper preceded her
voice.
    "Is it nighttime now?"
    "Yes," he said. "You slept through the day. When the morning gets close
again, you'll feel sleepy. You'll have more than enough warning."
    "Even if I can't see the sun?"
    "Even then."
    He didn't know the words to stop her, and wasn't sure he ought to say them if
he had. Instead, he watched her walk to the door. She paused on the threshold,
one pale, perfect hand curled around the frame. Every one of the dings and cuts
she'd been so proud of had disappeared.
    "I understand why you saved me," she said quietly. "I might not approve of
the way you did it, but I understand."
    He had no response for that. Grateful though he was, her understanding was a
million light-years from what he craved.
    Â 
    MARIANN found her way out of Bastien and Emile's outrageously elegant
subterranean residence without consciously knowing how. The bunker was, she
gathered, a serious of domes connected by tunnels. The various halls bent like a
maze, the dozens of doors suggesting the prospect of future residents.
    During the course of his explanations, Bastien had said they "weren't very
many." She hadn't had the presence of mind to ask what he meant. Were there
hundreds of
upyr
in the world? Thousands? Intuition told her there
couldn't be more than thousands or people would have noticed. Not sure she
wanted to dwell on that, she let her body lead her, her nose sensing the
dew-soaked night beyond the earth and rock.
    The secret door moved at the touch of her hand. She suspected it wouldn't
have if Bastien hadn't allowed it.
    Once outside, she followed a slightly overgrown walking trail through the
woods. Her sensitivity to sound was eerie. Every creak and crackle registered.
This was not, however, the only change in her perceptions.
    Her brain itself seemed sharper than before.
    The accident—if Arabella's actions could be called that—was coming back in
vivid detail. Despite the technicolor memory, she was having trouble believing
it had occurred.
    A vampire
. Bastien Luce had made her a vampire.
    Upyr
, she corrected herself, wishing mere semantics could ease her
mind. Though she tried, she could not imagine how she would cope with being one.
Every turn of her thoughts brought another obstacle into view.
    She reached the back of her house much sooner than she expected, her new and
improved legs having eaten up the distance in record time—yet another trait
she'd have to learn to hide from her friends.
    The mere idea overwhelmed her. How on earth was she going to face people she
knew? Her friends weren't stupid. Linda at the Clip 'n' Curl noticed if Mariann
even thought of cutting her own bangs.
    A rising and falling growl of feline discontentment snapped her gaze to the
porch. To say Pirate Vic was bristling was like saying the Sahara was dry. Her
poor cat looked like someone had stuck his tail in a socket. The last time he'd
puffed up like this, he'd been the sorriest abandoned kitten she'd ever seen,
spitting behind her Dumpster at the bakery.
    Obviously horrified by her appearance, he'd backed up all the way to his
kitty door.
    With a lump in her throat, she hunkered down before the steps. "It's me," she
cooed. "Mariann. The one who feeds you kibble when you're worn out from chasing
mice."
    At her voice, the low yowling stopped. Though his tail still twitched, his
fur went down to half-mast.
    "That's right," she said encouragingly, "come sniff my fingers and see it's
me."
    After a few false starts, he came, giving her one aggravated nip before
butting her knee and breaking into a noisy purr. She hadn't realized how much he
meant to her until she hefted him in her arms. She refused to acknowledge the
fact that he smelled sort of yummy. Vic was her pet and she'd protect him no
matter what. It wasn't like she'd ever felt the need to eat everything in sight.
Vampire or not, there were rules.
    "You still feel heavy," she said tearfully into his ruff. "I guess my vampire
strength's not all that."
    She carried